Shellui: ship sooner without rebuilding basic features
Shellui is an open-source web app platform with navigation, authentication, administration, and storage built in. Your product stays center stage, and your team skips rebuilding the basics.
Working with a coding agent? See Shellui for AI.
Everything around your app, already built
Start with sign-in, files, email, and admin on day one. Add SSO, audit trails, and company controls when a larger team arrives.
-
One shell for all your apps
Combine apps built with different frameworks under shared navigation, dialogs, and settings.
-
Sign-in included
OAuth and magic links across every app, with the pages you choose behind a session.
-
SAML SSO and SCIM
Register identity providers per company and provision members with SCIM.
-
File storage
Upload, share, and limit files through the SDK.
-
Email and newsletters
Themed sign-in mail, event mail, and newsletters, sent with Resend, Amazon SES, or SMTP.
-
Email and webhook rules
Pick what each event does: send an email, call a webhook, or both.
-
Administration
Members, sign-in, email, webhooks, hosting, and job health in one panel.
-
Web and desktop
Build static web files or a Tauri 2 desktop app from one project.
-
Open source, yours to run
MIT licensed. Self-host every service, and give your agent shellui.ai to start.
-
Audit and privacy
Event logs, per-company metrics, and no sign-in links in webhooks or logs.
Try Shellui in the playground
Explore a live Shellui app with no install and no scaffolding.
Who it's for
Teams that build more than one app
Shellui fits when the same sign-in, members screen, and settings keep showing up in every project.
-
Agencies
Start each client project with sign-in, members, settings, and file storage already working. Give each client its own theme and keep one codebase for the basics.
Read the quickstart -
Internal tools
Put dashboards and admin screens behind one sign-in and one navigation. Each tool keeps its own stack and deploys on its own schedule.
Shellui for internal tools -
Workshops and demos
Run the playground in a browser, add an app in a few lines of SDK code, and share a temporary preview with your group.
Try the playground
Scaffold your app. Shellui wraps it.
Your frontend stays the product in the iframe. shellui init scaffolds a starter wired for theme and language. shellui start runs the shell around that app.
Pick a starter
Choosing a chip updates only the shellui init line. Install the CLI globally first, as the docs recommend.
npm install -g @shellui/cli
shellui init react
shellui startInstall the CLI · Framework starters · Create a project
For another stack, run shellui init empty and point Home at your own iframe app.
One config file
Navigation, backend, storage, hosting, and chrome live in shellui.config.json. The CLI validates it against the @shellui/core schema at load time.
{
"$schema": "./node_modules/@shellui/core/schemas/shellui.config.schema.json",
"port": 4000,
"title": "My Shellui App",
"backend": {
"type": "shellui",
"url": "http://localhost:8000"
},
"navigation": [
{
"label": "Home",
"path": "home",
"url": "http://localhost:4000/",
"icon": "/icons/home.svg"
}
]
}$schema- Editor autocomplete and validation.
port/title- Dev server port and chrome title.
backend- Provider (
shelluior none) and API base URL. navigation- Sidebar items and iframe URLs. Each item needs
label,path, andurl.
CLI configuration
·
Write the config by hand
·
Schema: @shellui/core/schemas/shellui.config.schema.json
Ship static files, or a native app
shellui build writes a static application to dist/web/. Add --app to also bundle a Tauri 2 desktop wrapper under dist/app/.
Host the files yourself
The production output is HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, with no required cloud runtime. Put dist/web/ on the origin you already use, or keep running it on your own machines.
shellui buildOptional: native desktop with Tauri
The same project can ship a desktop app. The CLI uses Tauri 2, generates the wrapper under dist/app/, and does not ask you to commit native project files. Requires Rust and platform build tools.
shellui build --appSame shell as you grow
MIT license, one CLI, one static build. Optional native desktop from the same project. The host does not fork when a second surface or a second team shows up.
- Shared chrome
- Several frontends, one product shell. Each surface keeps its own stack.
- Host extras
- Navigation, auth, admin, and files ship with the shell so your app stays the product.
- Yours to run
- Build static files, host them where you already ship, or distribute the output yourself.
- Native desktop
-
shellui build --appwraps the same shell with Tauri 2. See Features and the desktop docs.